


Not One For Politics

by daynight



Category: Doctor Who, In the Loop (2009), The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Comedy, Doctor Who/The Thick of it Mashup, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-18
Updated: 2014-03-18
Packaged: 2018-01-16 05:01:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1332934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daynight/pseuds/daynight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clara Oswald, a motivated young teacher, has been nominated for an award. It was supposed to be a good thing. She thought it might be a fun night. What she didn't expect was a surprise hijacking from the ruling dark lord of spin, and a resulting tumble into a world of politics that was as baffling and mysterious as it's inhabitants.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. This isn't fun

Clara had been pleased when she heard she’d been nominated for the ‘bright stars young teacher of the year’ award. Ecstatic in fact. It made her really feel like her efforts were being acknowledged, and a little publicity wouldn’t hurt her attempts to fund the new after school music club. She had worn her favourite dress, a cute, retro polka dot number that nipped in at the waist and everything. She was even chatted up on the tube, not exactly a place of romantic inspiration, which must mean her efforts were not without results. She was actually looking forward to the whole glamorous malarkey.

But now, getting pulled to and fro, ordered to scurry from one place to the next in some sort of horrible, frenetic maelstrom, she was regretting ever accepting the invitation. This isn’t fun, thought Clara, it’s a fucking nightmare! She had been plucked by the arm as soon as she gave her name to the clipboard at the door by a large-ish woman in an all pastel number, who seemed to be bizarrely serene as she dragged Clara from one room to the other. Perhaps, Clara noted, she had been stuck in this environment long enough to learn not to give a shit? Or maybe she had achieved Nirvana. Clara, who found herself suddenly longing for a piece of that Zen, didn’t really get to ask as she was struggling to get a word in edgeways among the chaos. 

“Clara Oswald, yes? Teacher of the year nominee?”

“Um yes, that’s me, um, and you are?”

“Terri Coverley, press.” Clara waited for a bit more explanation vis-à-vis the forceful flight to some sort of backroom, or dungeon, Clara couldn’t be sure, but soon realised that Terri wasn’t really going to give her anymore to go on, at least not voluntarily. As they hurtled up a flight of stairs like a ragdoll caught up in a pale pink hurricane, Clara, although a little out of breath (how was Terri so energetic?) decided to press the matter.

“What, um, are we doing? I thought I would be, you know, sat down with a prossecco by now?”

“Oh, well, yes in a bit, Malcolm wants to prep you first” The unflustered Terri’s lips were set in a determined straight line, like she dragged confused teachers up stairwells every day of the week. She had definitely done this shit before. 

“Prep me? For what? Why is that necessary?” Terri gave her a side eye, but settled her pace; they must be nearing their destination. Clara smoothed her dark hair, certain that the bouncy blow dry she had painstakingly done earlier was probably somewhat flattened by the surprise hallway obstacle course. 

“He’s prepping all the teachers. For the speech. About the initiative.” Like it was obvious. 

“And who is Malcolm?” Now Terri really was giving her a disbelieving look, but at the same time something in her eyes told Clara that she really, really couldn’t be arsed to explain. 

“Tucker. Head of communications. Here we go, in here.” 

“B…” Clara was ushered into a room that looked suspiciously more like a large stationary cupboard than a professional meeting place. Before she could get her words out, Terri was off, waddling down the corridor with almost inhuman speed. It must have been her blue and red striped trainers that gave her that edge. 

Clara glanced around the room/cupboard/dungeon and was faced with two cow eyed people, one male, one female, who looked just as confused and dishevelled as she felt. They must be the other runner-ups she surmised, with her not to be dismissed detective skills. They both gave her weak sheepish smiles and introduced themselves and Clara felt instantly more at ease, finally among her people and not the crazy, hurrying lunatics that seemed to operate the government. She was just launching into a frankly hilarious joke about her sixth formers soufflé prank at the end of term when the door swung open with a bang so loud the wall almost cringed. A slim, grey haired man wielding a blackberry stormed in followed devotedly by a lanky guy whose face kind of looked like an unhappy bush baby and appeared to be carrying, or struggling with, a huge amount of heavy folders for the other man. He wasn’t quite quick enough in his tailing of the slightly psychotic looking figure in front, he couldn’t quite get behind him as he dramatically swung open the door and instead entered the door frame just as it swung back from the impact and smashed into his face, causing him to squawk out ‘fuck!’ and drop the files. Clara choked a small laugh. The man in front, who demanded the attention of everyone in the room with his presence, glanced back and rolled his eyes like they were about to fall right out of his head.

“Ollie! Fucks sake! I know you’re not exactly Mr fucking Olympia, but I thought your sticks-for-arms could handle a couple of fucking files! Come on, get up, get over here, piece of shit.”

Clara hadn’t heard this much swearing since taking detention on the last day of summer term. To be honest she was a bit taken aback, she had never seen a person so visibly feared, yet so confident. She may have been slightly impressed, and judging by the flailing urgency with which Ollie was picking up the files, she wasn’t the only person who found this guy pretty compelling. Also, he was surprisingly Scottish, judging from the accent (Clara may have developed an embarrassing thing for Scottish men after watching the movies ‘Gregory’s Girl’ and ‘Local Hero’ way too many times in her youth, damn if she didn’t love herself some nice landscapes and cute, awkward Scottish guys). And his rather intense gaze was now fixed on her. Oh fuck.

“Okay, you’re that teaching lot yeah? Bright stars or whatever the fuck that was?” He didn’t wait for a confirmation.  
“Nicola Murray wanted you here but I couldn’t give a shit so I figure if we’re going to parade you to the masses you might as well be fucking useful. Here’s some papers, I want you to read them, I want you to agree with them, I want you to say something nice and fucking sunshiny positive in the speech about them. Clear?” 

This man was quite the opposite of the clumsy but adorable boys she had liked in those movies in her teens, but hey, tastes mature and to be honest she was getting a little fed up with being constantly chased by overgrown boys all the time anyway. Sensing his queue, Ollie, who had now composed himself, began disseminating papers to the little group. Catching her eye whilst handing her the policy papers, Clara noticed that he gave her a slight, embarrassing flirty smile. So he was a bit of a creep as well as pathetic, she thought, how attractive. She pursed her lips in a mini-grimace back which expressed her deep feelings of ‘no thank you mate’ and took a sneaky look back up at the stormy older guy who was pacing around impatiently, hands on his hips like he had something far better to do. This had to be the Malcolm that Terri was talking about. Accidentally catching his eye, she quickly diverted it down to the papers, giving them a quick scan. And getting a bit peeved at their contents. Actually, make that very peeved.

“Excuse me, Malcolm, right?” With the mention of his name, it was definitely his name, he shot around from his pacing, looking positively demonic, like an inquisitive hawk. “I can’t support this, sorry.” The inquisitive look intensified. It was more predatory now. He began to smile. Why was the smile the scariest of all?

“I don’t think I heard you right, love.” The casual use of ‘love’ and the smile was definitely disarming. Weirdly charming, even. Clara steeled her resolve and tried again, although she was certain he had heard her the first time, he just didn’t like being spoken back to. 

“I can’t support this policy. I completely disagree with it. To be honest, it’s shit, it’s idiotic, it’s pretty much the worst idea I’ve ever read and I mark Year 7 creative writing. I’m not going to agree with it in a speech. So, I guess, I’ll go now?” 

Within about 3 seconds, the Scottish answer to Usain Bolt was about 10 cm away from her face like the worlds angriest shape shifter. The other two teachers, who had spent most of this exchange cowering, looked on silently. Thanks for the back up guys, she inwardly cursed. 

“Look, sweetheart” Another disarmament, but his voice was low and calm with horrible threat. “I’m not fucking asking you, I’m telling you. I don’t care if the policy tells you to skin cats alive in bio or fucking perform a strip tease for sex ed. I want it agreed with and you to go out there with a great big fucking smile and say it’s the best thing since ecstasy, okay?” Clara stared at him, brown eyes unwavering. The man really was forceful, and creative, she’d give him that. He was trying to scare her but she couldn’t help but feel vaguely amused, obviously he got on pretty well by frightening people into submission, but he was not her boss and couldn’t, despite his tone and it’s implications, have any say in her actions. She decided to push her luck.

“A strip tease, really?” Clara picked up on what she was sure was intended as an offensive throw away comment but had more than an air of suggestiveness. She smiled ever so slightly and maybe, just maybe his eyes crinkled just a little bit and his corpse coloured cheeks tinged a tiny tiny bit red. Could have just been her imagination. 

“A strip tease, interpretive dance, whatever, I couldn’t care less.” He wasn’t really meeting her eyes now. So he was flustered! Quickly resolving his demeanour, he returned to his original line. “You just better get out there and fucking sell this solid gold shite or you may find yourself on the dole eating Sainsbury’s own imitation rice crispies for breakfast, lunch and dinner.” Clara almost laughed. For one, he could have said she could find herself blowing the homeless for spare chips or something crass like that as opposed to the fairly pleasant by comparison rice crispie analogy but he was going surprisingly easy on her. There must be some shred of gentlemanly decency hidden beneath his steely exterior. Or he didn’t want to have to mention blowjobs or anything remotely sexual involving her since the strip tease thing had come out a little weird. 

Secondly, he was implying he could get her sacked! Last year when she had to take some time off to move flat, there had almost been a nuclear fall out at the school. They needed her. This man had a lot of nerve. She had noticed that most of the room, bumbling ostrich man Ollie included, seemed to be eying them with incredulity. Someone disagreeing with Malcolm, maybe even playfully flirting with him, must have been a bit of a rarity, like a full moon or an actually good song at Eurovision. But never mind that, Clara was angry. 

“No. And don’t you dare speak to me like that. Have some fucking respect.” With those solid words spoken evenly, accompanied by a mega-watt Hollywood smile that usually left men blinking like goldfish in a tank, Clara swept out of the room. As the door closed behind her she heard muffled shouting, swearing and maybe a lot of banging. A pretty successful exit, she was proud she had managed to seem cool, and had tactfully left before a retort could be uttered (or shouted). Clara felt a little sorry for the two poor souls she left in the demons lair but she was thoroughly fed up with this shit and set on finding her own damn seat away from the lunacy and a nice, big, complimentary glass of prosseco or, preferably, a whole bottle.


	2. Another drink

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clara unwittingly causes a semi-shambles

After a short trip to the loo, to sort out her hair and put on a bit more lippy, Clara soon found her seat. Unbeknownst to her, she had caused a little kerfuffle in the back rooms and whilst she settled at a table and chatted nicely with some other guests, governmental aids were getting their sweat on searching for her. It wasn’t as if she was evading them, she had actually gone to sit in her assigned seat, they just had rather ‘fucking brilliantly’ (Malcolm’s words) lost the sheet which showed where everyone was placed within the hall. So there was a bit of a panic because Malcolm was on raring form and really, really wanted to get his hands (with an almost creepy determination, noted Ollie) on that stuck up, prissy, fucking principled teacher. Ollie had cracked a joke about Malcolm being a bit old for her and was answered by a death glare that may have actually caused his balls to jump back into his body. After a verbal and sweary hiding, in which Malcolm threatened to make greatly impair Ollie’s height, one of his only good points, by sawing off his legs at the knees, Malcolm insisted that they, aka DoSac, ‘needed her’. It was sort of understandable, thought Ollie, why Malcolm felt he required her support on the policy papers the most out of the nominees. She was obviously the stand out of the lot and definitely the most attractive, if you like the whole ‘cute chipmunk face, banging body’ thing, (Seriously, were teachers usually that good looking? If she had taught at Ollie’s private boys school there would have been stampedes every time she stepped on campus, but maybe that said more about them than her), therefore the media were more likely to pick up on her opinion, perhaps just for an excuse to get pictures of a hottie in their rags. It was too bad that neither Ollie, or Glenn, or Robyn or Terri could fucking find her. Nicola was apparently above this kind of running about, and was also currently employed in practising her own rather dishonest speech. Maybe if they did find that teacher Ollie could slip her his number. Emma was getting on his last nerve.

Clara was deep in thought whilst tactfully fending off yet another ineffectual admirer, a civil servant called Ian who had a head that looked a bit like a pickled onion. What is it with me and man-children? She mused. Yes, she was a teacher and could be quite authoritative but she seemed to attract a certain type of man who needed a babysitter more than a girlfriend. In her presence it seemed men just lost their power and strength and became lazy and dependent. It was a depressing thought. She worked hard, was successful and proud of that but she had never really met anyone who could stand shoulder to shoulder with her. Sure, it had been a fun to breeze through stacks of good looking men for a while, to wrap them round her little finger, feel a bit sorry for them when she couldn’t quite commit, then take back that pity when they got all clingy and pathetic. Her last serious boyfriend, despite being a total genius, had turned out to been the epitome of immature and unreliable just like all the others. Now every wink from a sharp suited wannabe player who thought they could handle her but she knew would crumble at her touch and end up crying and begging on her kitchen floor made her feel a little nauseous. She wasn’t cruel, was always kind and good humoured in her rebuffs (unless they got nasty in retaliation, in which case she would perform a rather brutal verbal castration) but she was getting seriously fed up with having to look after people, to soothe bruised egos and encourage. She got enough of that at school.

Another drink! Free lukewarm prosseco not quite doing the trick, Clara politely excused herself and, despite protestations, got up to buy her own at the bar on the side of the main ceremony hall, thank you very much. Weary smile at the barman, she ordered her usual vodka cranberry, double shot, which may have caused a raised eyebrow. Just as she was about to down it, she found her elbow clamped onto by a sweaty, callused hand, guiding her away from the bar. Not this again.

“Oi, you.” A very thick (Glaswegian?) accent this time, coming from a younger man with dark hair and nice eyes who could be attractive if he didn’t have more than a hint of violent madness about him. He was holding her arm with one hand and on the phone with the other. Without directly addressing her, he got back to his phone conversation. “Hey Malc, yeah, I found her. Yeah it was easy actually, the fit one, right. Those DoSac shits are just fucking useless. Yeah, I know. Yeah, kill them. Eyeballs for stress toys. Will do. Bye, bye.” 

He turned back to her, striking blue eyes making holes in her skull. Clara replayed the comment ‘the fit one’ over and over in her head. Had he, the sinister ‘Malc’, said that? Or was it this guy, who, despite being just as sweary and if not more outwardly psychotic, Clara definitely wouldn’t refuse a drink from. She felt a blush creep up her face, but also a deep sense of annoyance that she was getting dragged into this weird, PR spin lunacy again. She was a teacher, not a golden goose to be paraded around, popping out eggs on command, no matter how nicely, or forcefully, she was asked. The man took her through a door out of the main hall and spun on his heels.   
“Look, Clara. Could you do us a favour?” He was smiling and it was actually pretty sweet and charming but Clara was sticking to her guns.

“I won’t…” 

“You won’t support the policy, I know, its shit yeah?” He gave her an understanding grin, like they were having a relaxed chat and he hadn’t actually cornered her against a wall in a random hallway. “We actually were wondering if you wanted to come in for another initiative. Look, I’m busy as fuck and need a fucking fag, but here’s the big man’s card. He’s gonna ring you, get you in, nice publicity, all that shit.” Clara was confused. Why had they changed tact? What was going on with these crazy people? The guy thrust a card into her free hand with the words ‘Malcolm Tucker’ printed on them clearly, then gave her a look with those nice eyes again.  
“Are you not gonna drink that?” She remembered her neglected vodka cranberry, and with one swift move, drank the entire thing. The man seemed to admire her aplomb. “Nice. See you on stage then.” He hurried away without even mentioning his name, pausing only to retrieve a cigarette packet from his back pocket, prematurely shove a fag in his mouth and smack another man so hard he dropped his beer. She looked at the card, so smooth and professional; Patrick Bateman would be deeply envious. She had to admit she was intrigued. She tucked the card carefully into her clutch and returned to the main hall.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw one of Malcolm’s lanky minions messing about in the back, but decided against alerting them to her presence. They really were kind of useless. She sat back down and listened to Nicola Murray give a fairly insincere speech punctuated with flat jokes, tittering laughs and one awful Freudian slip, where she accidentally called a senior official a ‘monster’ instead of a ‘master’ of his craft. Clara was not surprised, when it came down to it, to find that she did not win the ‘Bright Stars’ prize, but went up graciously and kept entirely neutral in her speech, only praising the efforts of her school and her students. As she was leaving the stage, she glanced out to the crowd and noticed that a pair of eyes was quite intensely fixed on her, not even bothering to clap. Even in the taxi home, the business card burned in her mind. Fuck sake.


	3. The pathfinder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A visit to DoSAC and unexpected meetings.

“What the fuck is a fourth sector pathfinder?” Clara had wondered to herself as she looked at her invite email. After the hectic awards show, her life had gone pretty much back to normal, despite the fact she got a tiny photo feature in the evening standard that her kids could just not shut up about. She had propped the business card up next to her MacBook on her mini office desk in the corner of her kitchen, and looked at it every now and again, not really expecting anything to come of it. Maybe she had also done a little Google snoop on the ‘big man’ himself after too many glasses of wine one night, finding that ‘Malcolm Tucker’ didn’t actually yield that many results, with the few that she found (mostly obscure political blogs) curiously absolved of all mentions of his private life and quite insistent that it was he, not the prime minister, who effectively ran parliament despite offering little proof. How very mysterious. She had put it out of her mind and gotten on with things, until, one morning when she was making breakfast (ironically, it was rice crispies), her laptop made a ‘bling’ noise and she saw she had received an email from DoSAC, formally inviting her to join their Fourth Sector Initiative as a teacher ‘path finder’. The idea was frankly confusing and ill thought out but her funding efforts were waning once more and she knew a good opportunity when she saw one. She may have been a little curious to see a certain evil looking Scottish man again also, if only to fully convince herself that a) he was not a nice person, b) he was way too old, and c) it would never, ever happen. I must be fully losing it, thought Clara as she wrote back, agreeing to visit the department on the arranged date. 

Dressing in a cute plum coloured skirt suit with a white shirt and dark tie, Clara collected her notes in a black leather satchel and took off for the DoSAC building, trying to ignore a feeling of impending doom. She had been to parliament before with the kids but never behind the scenes in government, her only glimpse had been at the award ceremony, which to be honest did not give a great impression of competence. It was so confusing, constantly changing aims, forcing things, then dropping them completely, messing about all in the name of spin and scrambling to try and maintain a veneer of control. She felt a little out of place when entering the building, suddenly aware that her skirt was quite a lot shorter than a lot of the other female civil servants. Thankfully Terri, now a vision in powder blue accessorised with a gaudy gold necklace, met her at the front and completely averted all attention away from Clara. 

“Hello, Clara Oswald? I’m Terri Coverley, head of press.”

“Yes, I know, we’ve met before. At the awards ceremony.” 

“Oh, yes, of course. Well follow me up to DoSAC, can I get you anything? Tea, coffee?” Terri obviously did not remember Clara at all. She clearly gave no shits whatsoever. She ushered Clara into a bustling open plan office, dispensing her on some couches and telling her to wait, whilst accosting a tiny, frail looking pale blonde, who soon turned up to begrudgingly ask Clara how many sugars she took in her tea. After the pale blonde introduced later as ‘Robyn’ hatefully shoved a cup of tea (two sugars) in her direction, muttering under her breath slightly, Clara was met by Ollie and a much older man who was giving her a weak and bashful smile, which seemed to only add to the air of unshakable depression around him. She had seen him hurryingly remove his glasses before coming over. Ollie was looking smug and in his element, rocking back on his heels, hands in pockets, attempting to ooze confidence. 

“Hi, Clara? We’ve met, I’m Ollie. “ She nodded, smiling at how different he seemed when not kowtowing to a far more powerful man. “This is Glenn Cullen” Glenn muttered a hello and shook her hand for a fraction too long, which caused Ollie to raise an amused eyebrow. “We work for Nicola Murray, head of DoSAC which I’m sure you already knew.” 

“Yes, I did kind of guess. So, Fourth Sector Pathfinders?” 

“Fourth Sector Pathfinders, yes, one of Nicola’s brainchildren.” Noting their lack of enthusiasm, Clara supposed that even Nicola’s advisors didn’t take her particularly seriously. They prepped her on the scheme, sometimes cracking tiny, sarcastic jokes at its expense. Terri hurtled back, missed the point of a couple of jibes in what seemed to be a standard way, and informed Clara that Nicola was ready to see her now. Clara got up and walked to the enclosed office at the end of the room, somewhat aware that Ollie and Glenn still had their eyes fixed on her back and appeared to be ‘subtly’ gossiping about her like school girls at the end of year disco. 

Nicola, who had been leaning forward and massaging her temples, looking like she wanted to sink into the floor when Clara entered the room, composed herself with a beaming smile and stood up to shake her hand. 

“Hi, Nicola Murray, head of Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship.” So that was what DoSAC stood for. “Thanks ever so much for coming in today!” She really attempted to sell the fourth sector idea and Clara, pityingly, could see that she actually genuinely believed in it’s potential. She soon found herself, despite reservations, agreeing to the idea because it seemed to cheer up Nicola immensely.  
“Really? So you’d do it? Front the campaign? Oh thank you so much! This is excellent, best news I’ve had in a while and it’s been a hell of a day” Clara gave her a tight smile. She didn’t realise she’d be fronting the initiative. Hello playful teasing from her students for the next couple of months as her foolish face was plastered on posters and brochures. But she couldn’t exactly go back on her word now, and Nicola, although shambolic, meant well. After a brisk knock, Terri popped her head around the corner of the door. 

“Nicola, it’s Malcolm.”  
Nicola visibly greyed, whilst Clara’s stupid, fucking weird heart made a slight leap. She thought back to that business card, sitting on her desk at home. “Oh god, oh shit, oh god.” Breathed Nicola, more distraught by the second. “What the fuck does he want? Does he want to see me?” 

“No, no. Not you.” Nicola whistled a huge sigh of relief; she must be absolutely terrified of him, and then rapidly appeared confused. “He wants to see her.” Terri gestured towards Clara. 

“What?” Spluttered Clara, equally perplexed. “Why?” Terri shrugged and bustled off; back to eat malteasers, catch up on all the Waitrose gossip emails and review ‘Joseph and his Technicolor Dream coat’ poster designs. Clara turned to Nicola, who could not offer up an explanation either and just seemed thankful that it was not her turn to be summoned to the lair. As Clara was about to leave, with Nicola assigning Ollie as a guide to take her to Malcolm’s office, she ventured a question.

“Um Nicola? Who actually recommended me for this?”

“Oh um, well I saw your speech, I really liked it, thought you would be perfect!” Nicola replied sharply with a smile as she shut the door to her office, not keen on any other divulgences. This was a bare-faced lie as Nicola had not even been present during Clara’s short, not particularly memorable speech, in fact Clara had noticed her later at the bar, downing Mojitos with gusto. 

The business card.

Very very confusing.


	4. Office banter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time to enter the lair.

On the taxi down to Malcolm’s office, Ollie was very chatty. Annoyingly so. Apparently he and Malcolm were ‘really good mates’ and he was pretty much his right hand man. In the middle of a boast about how influential he was in Nicola’s department that Clara was kind of absent-mindedly nodding along to, her thoughts consumed by grey hair, sharp suits and shouting, he received a call from someone called ‘Emma’. She seemed to be shrilly insisting that he didn’t do the recycling properly and Ollie was turning redder by the second as he stutteringly tried to defend himself. Somewhat castrated by the nagging call, he didn’t attempt to flirt with Clara again for the rest of the cab ride. Thankfully. 

They arrived outside and Ollie showed Clara into the building. Out of nowhere, the other Scottish man from the awards night, the one with the cigarettes and blue eyes, shot out from a hallway (why did people keep on turning up out of thin air?) and grabbed Ollie viciously by the ear, despite being quite a bit shorter than him. Ollie made a sound like a kicked puppy. 

“Fucking Reeder, I told you to never show your shitty, paunchy little face round here! Fuck off back to DoSAC, you useless cunt!” He looked unhinged, and had a bit of stubble on his face. Sexy? No, not sexy, Clara quickly corrected herself, a little worried for her own sanity. 

“Oh hello Jamie, nice to see you too.” Ollie, gripped by the ear with vice like strength, gave Clara an embarrassed smile, used to this kind of treatment from the angriest man in Scotland. Jamie, following the direction of Ollie’s wimpy grin, noticed Clara and let go of his now reddening ear. His face, which had been contorted with fury, settled into a pleasant smile. 

“Hi, how are you?”

“You’ve met?” Yelped Ollie visibly irritated, as he wanted to be the one to introduce the pretty young teacher to the Caledonian boys, hopefully earning him a couple claps on the back for the unexpected mid-day eye candy. He may even have attempted to start a rumour that he had taken her out for a proper seeing to, which could have greatly boosted his rep among the mafia. That chance was scuppered now. 

“’Course we’ve fucking met, you weepy bell-end. You think you know people that I don't know? I’ll take it from here. Fuck off back to DoSAC of shit, will you? Your face is making me feel ill” With a sulky expression but knowing better than to argue with the madman, Ollie muttered something like ‘Say hi to Malc for me’ and slunk back, defeated. 

“Sorry ‘bout that.” Spoke Jamie. “I just really fucking hate that guy.” Clara smiled, unsure of how to reply. He was certainly honest. He led her to a hall, sat her down in a rather nice looking chair and bellowed out the word ‘Sam!’ Giving her a grin before he left, saying “Enjoy your chat with the boss, eh?” which seemed imply some sort of weird, secret joke, Jamie abandoned Clara to go mercilessly destroy some defenceless soul who had accidentally deleted a very important file in the next room. Sam, who introduced herself as Malcolm’s secretary, soon stepped into the hall. She was a nice looking girl, someone who she could definitely envision sharing cocktails with due to her snide little joke about the quality of DoSAC’s beverages when Clara turned down a cup of tea due to having already enjoyed one courtesy of Robyn. She also seemed, not unlike Jamie, to be up to something, amusement dancing in her eyes every time she glanced Clara’s way. They chatted for a bit about Clara’s bag, which turned into talking about fashion in general, which turned in to them both laughing about shared experiences doing internships at fashion magazines during Uni and what a disaster that had been. Whilst sniggering at Sam’s pretty hilarious story of accidentally walking in on the features editor stark naked, another call of ‘Sam!’ this time from inside an office, summoned her away. She emerged shortly from said office and beckoned Clara in. Malcolm Tucker would see her now. 

Clara was a little nervous about seeing Malcolm Tucker again. Maybe she was going to be horrified with herself at finding him ever so slightly attractive. He was after all, very scary and a lot older than her and completely different in every way. Unfortunately enough, when she looked over at the figure messing with files at his desk, she realised that she still found him pretty compelling, in his expensive looking grey suit. He had the look of someone who had been handsome when he was younger in a sort of girly way but was hardened by stress and hard work, he was really slim, had enormous spider like hands that were waving everywhere and the complexion of a man who hadn’t slept in weeks. What the hell was wrong with her? 

He looked up from the files, nonchalant, as she stood awkwardly near the door. She felt like one of her pupils, waiting for a harsh telling off from the headmasters. No no no, that sounded like the premise of a porno. Inappropriate. Finally after what seemed like an eternity of feeling like an idiot, he deemed to speak to her. 

“So you’ve agreed to do that Fourth Sector shit at DoSAC?” How did he know already? 

“Well, Nicola seems very keen to have me.” He nodded slowly, looking back down at the files. He wasn’t sweary and mean now, more subdued. In fact, he seemed thoroughly disinterested in her presence. If this was all he had to ask, a question which he already knew the answer to and didn’t seem to give a fuck whether she was there or not, why on earth was she there? Clara decided to get a bit of explanation, maybe confirm a suspicion.

“Was it you who um put me forward?” He looked up again, evil eyes boring into her soul.

“Yeah it was.” He stated simply.

“Why? I thought that…with the speech…and the…” She sounded like a pathetic, stuttering kid. Her students had more of a way with words. She silently chastised herself.

“Because I like you.” Clara thought for a terrible moment she was having a surprise heart attack. That, said with such matter of fact ease, was a killing line. Feeling like she was in the middle of dying, Malcolm went back to shuffling papers about like he hadn’t a care in the world. Bastard.

**Author's Note:**

> This is mainly a huge procrastination effort on my part, hope some people read and enjoy!


End file.
